ALEXANDRIA, VA — Joe Reeder knew the worth of things.

Not just the price of them, though he knew that, too. He knew the worth of a hand-forged hinge, a scarred floorboard, a neglected old house, a well-told story, a proper bridge partner, a bargain antique, a family camp, a good glass of inexpensive bourbon, and the kind of friend who becomes family.

Charles Joseph Reeder II, a native of Northern New York and longtime resident of Old Town Alexandria, died Wednesday morning, June 24, 2026. He was 99. The family obituary published on Legacy.com gives his birth date as Feb. 13, 1927, in Carthage, N.Y., and provides much of the family, military, work, and travel chronology for his remarkable life.

Joe was the eldest son of Roscoe Giles Reeder and Louise Johnson Reeder. Raised in Northern New York with his younger brother, Samuel, he graduated from high school and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in May 1945, serving through the end of World War II. After his discharge, he studied at Syracuse University as a Marine Corps reservist. During the Korean War, he received his commission as an officer and served in overseas combat operations.

The Young Marine on a Lambretta

After the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, Joe stepped into the kind of chapter that sounds borrowed from a postwar movie: a young Marine officer, handsome and Gregory Peck-ish, crossing Europe on an Italian Lambretta scooter. He wandered from Italy to Spain, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom, earning his lodging and meals the old-fashioned way — by doing chores at hostels and village inns.

It was romantic, certainly, but it was also very Joe: practical, curious, independent, and perfectly happy to trade labor for the next road, the next town, the next story. When he returned to the United States, that trained eye of his found a different kind of work in Washington, D.C. — not quite cloak-and-dagger, but close enough for the movies — as an aerial and reconnaissance photography analyst for the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Washington suited him. So did houses. With his new position in the capital, Joe began building a real estate portfolio and a wide circle of friends who shared his love of American history and auction hunting. He and his partner, Alfred Winstead of Coles Point, Va., bought and renovated apartment buildings on Capitol Hill and in Dupont Circle, then made their home in Old Town Alexandria in the mid-1960s, where their expertise in early American restoration deepened into a way of life.

The Eye for Old Things

For Joe, antiquing was not a casual Saturday errand. It was closer to devotion. His dear friend Jay Palermino remembered their regular pilgrimages to Dixon’s Auction at Crumpton, the Maryland auction house whose own website describes it as a third-generation auction company established in 1961 and “one of the largest discovery auctions.”

“Joe and I would travel two hours each week to Dixon’s Auction in Crumpton, Md.,” Palermino said. “That was a religious activity for him, and I was his sidekick, so he kept alert throughout the experience. It was always a full day, and he was so well respected by all who attended as an authority of what he purchased.”

One can picture him there: alert, amused, waiting for the overlooked thing in the corner that everyone else had missed.

Back in Washington, Joe found another stage for that trained eye of his. From the 1960s into the 1980s, he worked for Hargrove, Inc., the Washington-area event design and production firm whose résumé reads like civic theater at the highest level. Hargrove says its inaugural work has included theming, décor, fabrication, space planning, technical oversight, installation scheduling and attendee way-finding, and that it has produced presidential inaugurals with as many as 58 events in 38 venues over five to seven days. For Joe, who became an event design coordinator for several presidential inaugural balls, it must have been irresistible: history, pageantry, pressure, flowers, lights, fabric, timing — and not a crooked chair in sight.

The House at 517 Prince Street

But in Alexandria, Joe Reeder will be remembered most for one address: 517 Prince Street, the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House.

The house is not grand in the mansion-house sense, and that is precisely why it matters. The City of Alexandria describes the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House as one of the earliest homes in the city and possibly the least-altered 18th-century home in Northern Virginia. The City says the 0.3-acre property contains a 1770s timber-frame and brick dwelling and a small garden, and has been recognized by local historians as a rare microcosm of a complete single-family dwelling, with living, dining and sleeping rooms, kitchen, necessary, rooms for enslaved workers or servants, and storage rooms all under one roof.

It is a house of human scale: low ceilings, old glass, hearths, woodwork, privy rooms, service spaces, smokehouse history, and the kind of survivals that make preservationists lean forward and lower their voices. National Register material assembled for this story describes the house as a rare vernacular, middle-class frame dwelling that retains original plaster walls, original wood flooring, fine woodwork, hand-forged hardware and brick hearths.

Joe bought the house in 2000. The City’s own timeline says Brown family descendant Richard L. Cheeseman sold the property to Charles Joseph Reeder that year, and that in 2002 a new kitchen and bath addition was constructed with repurposed materials.

That detail matters because it sounds like Joe: not a glossy, ahistorical addition dropped onto an old house, but a practical improvement made with old materials and respect for the building. The City calls the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House “one of our community treasures” and says archival research, deeds, fire insurance maps, family photographs, ledger entries, field inspection, dendrochronology and paint analysis were used to understand the house before work moved forward.

The Phone Call That Saved a House

And then came the phone call.

In a conversation with Zebra, former Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberberg remembered sitting at the mayor’s desk at City Hall when Joe Reeder called. He wanted to talk about his property, he told her. He had some ideas about the City getting involved.

Silberberg, who served as Alexandria’s mayor from 2016 to 2019, did not know Joe then, though she knew the house. Like so many Alexandrians, she had driven past it many, many times and understood it to be one of those rare Old Town places that seemed to have survived by its own quiet force. Her own accomplishments page now describes adding the 1770s Murray-Dick-Fawcett House to the City’s historic preservation stock as “the most significant addition to the city’s portfolio in half a century.”

She offered to come to him.

“Oh no,” he told her. He would come to her.

Depending on the exact date of that first call, Joe would have been 89 or 90. By the time the City acquired the house in April 2017, he had turned 90. But Silberberg said she could see him from her City Hall window as he approached: tall, erect, spry of step, carrying himself like a much younger man — “as if he was just a 22-year-old.”

In no time, he was in her office.

They talked about the property. That conversation, Silberberg said, was the beginning of the City’s discussion about preserving the house for the public.

“I adored Joe Reeder,” Silberberg told Zebra in a written statement. “What a remarkable life. He lived with gusto and joie de vivre. Whenever I was chatting with Joe or was in his presence, I always felt that I learned something about history and about living well. And there was always laughter.”

For Silberberg, the acquisition remains one of the proudest preservation achievements of her time as mayor.

“As mayor, I am deeply proud of what we achieved together with Joe and his beloved historic home in Old Town, thanks to the help of our Office of Historic Alexandria and the grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia,” she said. “When we added his home, known as the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House, to our city’s historic preservation stock in 2017, it was the most significant addition to the city’s portfolio in half a century.”

Silberberg also credited former Mayor Patsy Ticer with bringing the house to her attention, and then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe for what she called his “critical support.” McAuliffe served as Virginia governor from 2014 to 2018.

“It was a big team effort,” Silberberg said.

The agreement saved more than a house. It honored the man who had devoted years to protecting it. Joe would spend the rest of his life in the home he loved, and when his time there ended, the house would begin a new life of its own as a public museum.

Silberberg said she remains especially grateful that, as part of the preservation agreement, Joe was able to remain in the home until his recent move to assisted living.

“It showed a lot of heart,” she said. “That’s how a community should look after one another.”

The City acquired the property in April 2017 with support from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and Reeder himself. Joe retained a lifetime estate, allowing him to spend the rest of his days in the house he had lovingly restored. When his stewardship ended, a new chapter would begin: the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House would open its doors as a living museum, ensuring that Joe’s greatest gift to Alexandria would continue to educate and inspire generations to come.

The City says the property is to be used in perpetuity as a historic site, a vest-pocket park and garden, creating new open space in Old Town while preserving a nationally significant architectural and cultural resource.

That future is no longer theoretical. The Office of Historic Alexandria and Glavé & Holmes Architecture made the final public presentation for the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House Comprehensive Plan in February 2025, with the City describing the plan as focused on the site’s preservation, interpretation, and future as a City-owned museum.

The Comprehensive Plan materials assembled for this story say the house will undergo very limited modifications to protect its historic fabric, with new reversible interpretive features for guided and self-guided visitors. The plan calls for improved access, restrooms, staff facilities, and small-event infrastructure, largely on the grounds and in the former garage, and estimates that roughly $6.1 million to $8.4 million will be needed to achieve the preservation and interpretation goals.

Historic Alexandria had already begun celebrating Joe as part of the house’s story. In April 2025, the City invited the public to a May 4 garden party at Murray-Dick-Fawcett House, celebrating his 98th birthday, with house tours, refreshments, live music, and proceeds benefiting what the City called “Joe’s beloved Murray-Dick-Fawcett House.”

Silberberg added one more detail, the kind preservationists love: “As I recall, his house had its original floorboards!!!”

Of course it did. Joe would have known the worth of those, too.

The Bucket List

For all his Old Town importance, Joe’s heart never really left the North Country. One of his greatest passions was preserving his family’s camp near the Stillwater Reservoir in Northern New York. He liked to tell people that in 99 years, he had missed only one year going to camp — the year he served overseas during the Korean War.

And he kept moving. Since 2019 alone, Joe crossed off bucket-list trips to the American Southwest, California wine country, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Alaska, Central America, Cape Cod, Lake Nasser, the Red Sea, Machu Picchu, Egypt and the Nile River. He went to New York for Broadway, spent summers at Fire Island Pines, Rehoboth and the Outer Banks, and in recent years stalked elk and mule deer in the Colorado mountains and caught halibut, lingcod, rockfish and salmon in the Gulf of Alaska.

He loved inexpensive bourbon and cards. He was a master bridge player right up to the end. His family says his final hours were spent with his closest bridge partners: Bob Joseph, Thad Hunkins and Steve Wagner.

Joe had great affection for his brother Sam’s family, including nephews Matt, who died in 2015, and Tim, and niece Molly. He had countless friends in Northern New York, including many longtime members of the Stillwater Club, founded in 1893. He had many close friends in Northern Virginia, including his attorney James Turner, his realtor Paul Anderson, Ricky and Ana Rivera, David and Edith Rivera, and longtime neighbors Joan Goehler and Bob Joseph.

In the past several years, he was cared for in his home by Betty Atkins and her late brother, Antonio Molina. Since February 2026, he had been cared for by the kind and compassionate staff of Paul Spring Senior Living, where he spent his final days in declining health but strong in spirit. He kept going right to the very end.

Joe is survived by his cousin Sue Collyer and her husband, John, of New York; nephew Tim Reeder, his wife, Sue, and their children Sam and Catherine; niece Molly Chamberlain, her husband, Douglas, and sons Thomas and Charles; great-nieces Elizabeth Cherkis and Sarah Reeder; and many friends who were, for Joe, like extended family.

A celebration of life is expected the week of July 13 in Old Town Alexandria, with a private memorial planned in early fall 2026 at Raven Lake in Northern New York, where Joe wished to be laid to rest.

Tributes and donations in Joe’s memory may be made to the American Chemical Society’s Project SEED, a program the ACS describes as providing hands-on summer research experiences and virtual summer camps for students, and which Joe helped underwrite throughout his life.

Alexandria has lost a true original. But because Joe Reeder had the rare generosity to think beyond his own lifetime, generations of residents, schoolchildren, preservationists, and curious visitors will one day walk into 517 Prince Street and find not just an old house, but the lives that passed through it — and the man who helped make sure it would still be standing to tell its stories.